Remembrances
by Lorien Urbani
Summary: While trying to find out why he keeps on dreaming about falling, Robert makes discoveries about himself and stumbles upon a woman who killed him in his dreams.
1. Searching

_**A/N:**_This is a Robert Fischer-centric fic in two parts. Why Robert Fischer? I like a complex character. He and Cobb fascinate me the most. I need to explain **what inspired me**. I found my old high-school notes on _Brave New World_ by Aldous Huxley while cleaning the attic room and they inspired me. We dedicated two lesson to dreams, in particular dream incubation (which is inception, basically), and went all philosophical on whether we can make ourselves remember our dreams, as well as remember very subconscious things in our dreams. It's all very complex and some interpretations vary. I am no dream expert, so I simply tried to stay as close to the movie as possible, while daring to incorporate some of my ideas about dreams, as well a my personal experiences. I do believe we can "train" ourselves to remember dreams, or remember things in dreams. In fact, that was one of my _Brave New World_ home-works back in the day (my teacher was enthusiastic). And surprisingly, it worked to an extent. There is always the danger of false memories, but hey, it was fun. Also, I believe that something seemingly insignificant, especially if we try to achieve this, can trigger a whole bunch of memories. This is a slight nod to Proust's _Combray_, but really only a slight nod. _Combray _contains the matter of involuntary memories, after all, and we're dreaming here.

I hope you have fun reading this two-part story.

_**The premise:**_ I remember that it was said in the movie that if inception on Robert Fischer worked, it might change him significantly (or something along those lines). This story is my take on how inception might have changed him.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own _Inception_, at all, but it might own me. I wish I owned Nolan's brain for a week. It would be enough to get some awesome ideas.

* * *

**Part I**

**Searching**

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Robert Fischer often dreamed and his dreams were mostly just like everyone else's. He was being chased and the more he ran, the more his legs turned into water and whatever was chasing him was always about to take him down, but never did. He was missing a very important event because he was being terribly late and in the end, he either entirely missed that event or entered a wrong room. In his dreams, he was even flying, speaking to absolutely fictional strangers and petting snakes.

But he never dreamed that he was falling – and for the last month, this had been his only dream. The scene was always the same. He was tied and gagged, sitting on the edge of a derelict stone balcony, a long, long way from the gray ground that he could barely see from his precarious vantage point. And then, he was already falling, watching the world above him shrink and grow smaller as he was approaching the ground beneath him with uncomfortable speed, and with it came – death. As he was falling, his mind was empty of everything but panic. He could feel the pressure of the approaching ground growing in his back, spreading all over his body and just before he was going to meet the gray, cracked concrete, he woke up, shooting up in his bed and panting. Every single night.

Something was not right and he wanted to know why he felt that way, why he was so very certain of something being terribly amiss. The answer was in the dreams, but he knew very little about dreams, only what he was taught when he was being trained to block out any attempt at extraction. But he knew one thing – he could _make_ himself dream about falling and expand the scene. He had never done it; in fact, he had never really cared about dreams, other than the dreams one was supposed to follow to lead a happy, fulfilling life and he had problems even with those, since he had no idea _what_ exactly he wanted.

But this would be a challenge and truthfully, Robert Fischer liked a challenge.

Before going to bed, Robert pondered on the dream and when he was certain it was the last thing on his mind, he allowed his sleepy mind to drift.

* * *

_He turns around and for a split second, he sees an illusion of a woman, her eyes cold and empty, her soft lips curled up in satisfaction, her wavy, short, deep brown hair glistening around her pale face like a dark halo. Her beauty is in contradiction to the sordidness of her actions. She raises her arm, a gun in her hand, and before he can comprehend what she wants from him, why she wants to end him, the gun sings, spits out a bullet and kills him._

_But strangely, the scene shifts rapidly and he finds himself coughing out salt water. He is sitting in the ocean, with water reaching to his chest, and the creamy waves are hitting him and splashing more salt into his face, stinging his eyes. He lifts himself up and wobbles to the shore, his black suit – wasn't he wearing a white ski suit before? – dripping. For one strange moment, he thinks, _Am I dead?Is this heaven?_ But instinct tells him that it is not. Heaven should feel beautiful and like the one place in the world where you want to be, but he feels discomfited and even repelled by it. Hell? Who knows. He is hardly a believer. _

_He looks up, removing his wet hair from his face, and freezes – there she is, standing in front of him, the woman who killed him. Her beauty is pronounced and alluring, but she has already shown him her claws and he doesn't trust her. She offers him a lovely grin and it's very hard not to smile back, if only a little, but the distrust remains. It should – he sees now that the gun is still in her hand and she does not even attempt to hide it. _

"_If I kill you now, Robert," she speaks with a velvety voice, "you will never wake up again. Now, please come with me," she purrs sweetly, as if she's not issuing threats, but talking about flowers and rainbows. "I am expecting guests."_

_Robert sighs. She is petite and he could manage her, but she has a gun and he knows very well that she can and _will_ use it if she has to – if she _wants_ to. And she wants to, but not yet. How long does he have? Well, he is not suicidal._

_He is not scared of her. He is scared of his inability to _act_. This brings back to memory his father and his last message to his son._

Disappointed_. _

_Somehow, Robert wants to prove him wrong. He wants to show his father that his only son is not such a disappointment. So he follows the woman into the unknown, under the threat of her gun, hoping that from where his father is now, he will see his son accepting his fate like a man._

He didn't tell anyone that he was trying to remember why he was dreaming about falling. Actually, he would never share something as private as his dreams with anyone. He didn't want anyone's attention. Everyone's eyes were on him as it was, ever since he announced at the last board meeting that he was disbanding the company.

That came to him as an inspiration of a moment, but it was one such inspiration that was solid and lasting. It happened a little more than a week ago, on a truly nice, sunny day, with cotton clouds dotting the sky every now and then. Robert didn't really care about the weather, or at least he cared about it when he had to – rain required an umbrella and a lot of patience because he just hated wet socks, which could never be avoided; sunshine required sunglasses and that he liked because he could hide from the world for a while, not having to conceal the emotions in his eyes, as the sunglasses did all the work for him. And that was that. But on that day, sunshine felt really good, tugging at one of his inner strings gently, reminding him of something that he had thought about for the first time in his life. When you had been a shadow all your life, trying to be someone else to please another person, although a father's love should, by default, be unconditional, you tended to forget who _you_ actually _were_.

Robert wanted to know who he was. It was as simple as that.

"Did you say something, Robert?" Peter Browning inquired, while Robert was leaning against the back of the black leather swivel chair he was sitting in at the head of the long desk during the board meeting, tapping his chin with an index finger, his thoughts drifting.

He didn't know if he had said anything; perhaps he _had_ voiced his thoughts aloud. _I want to know who I am_. He might have done that while he was daydreaming.

He was aware of who the newspapers thought he was – a rich young man who had everything he wanted, from expensive cars and summer, as well as winter resorts, to beautiful ladies; he was aware of who the board members thought he was – an heir still green behind his ears; and Uncle Peter, and his so-called friends, and the girls he'd been dating. They all had an idea about him. But the important thing was that Robert Fischer didn't know who Robert Fischer was and it came to him, like a whisper, the idea that his father did love him, after all, and had been so tough on him for his son's sake.

_Tough love_. It sure did sound like Maurice Fischer's kind of love. And although he never said as much, he was sure that his father wanted him to be his own man, not defined by Fischer Morrow, but by himself, his own choices, his own decisions, his own actions. His father wanted Robert to be proud of himself. Now, Robert wanted to know who he was and the massive energy conglomerate would not give him a good answer, or any answer at all. Could he do it? He was scared, but it _was_ possible. All his life, he had been an idea; now he wanted to be a person.

It was then that he interrupted Peter, straightened his silk tie and, giving a faint smile, announced his decision. He was disbanding the Fischer Empire.

The reaction was expected – the stares of disbelief, the o-shaped mouths of silent horror, the indignant shaking of heads.

"It would break your father's heart," someone said, while the hubbub of voices buzzed around him, demanding whether he knew_ exactly_ what he had just said, what his decision entailed, what the _consequences_ would be.

"It is your inheritance, your right, your _duty_!" Uncle Peter roared, silencing the rest of the board members with his grizzly authority.

But the things Peter Browning said were not true. His father founded the company, not Robert. It was his father's wealth, not Robert's. The company was bequeathed to Fischer Jr. because no one had seen another alternative, because everyone thought he should get everything only because he was the son of the right man, even if the founder of the energy conglomerate would have rather seen it led by someone else, someone more competent, and someone more like Maurice Fischer. Technically speaking, his inheritance was not his right, but a consequence of age-old nepotism. But really, what would be the worst thing that could happen to Robert Fischer if he disbanded his father's company? He wouldn't even end up being poor; instead of being a multi-billionaire, he would shift down to being "only" a millionaire. Things were so easy for him, even too easy, since he'd had his own account since he was born and a good portion of those millions were left to him by his mother, and as she said in her letter to her little boy that was attached to her will, "Use it for education and your dreams."

Well, he was educated, and now he would find himself and live by his dreams, _when_ he found them.

And that reminded him of his objective – to crack the mystery of his dreams about falling, to seek the possibility of a meaning in those dreams. He just had to know and there was not really any logic behind it, just the need to _know_.

"Robert!"

He remembered the "dream team", as he called them in his mind during his training against extraction, telling him about lucid dreams, in which the dreamer knew he was dreaming, and he had been explained how to achieve such awareness, with practice and over a long span of time. Yet Robert wasn't interested in dreams back then and failed to practice, but now he wished he'd had. He had already extracted a scene from his mind, if his amateurish attempts could be called like that – the alluring woman with the gun, killing him first, then keeping him as a hostage. He was ready to dig even deeper. He was such an amateur at this, but it was his mind, his dreams and he had at least some control over them, he supposed.

"Robert!" Uncle Peter's voice called again, but instead of replying, Fischer Jr. stood up from the swivel chair without a word and went home to dream.

* * *

What kind of place is this?_ Buildings rising from the concrete, then collapsing, a world of eternal earthquakes and strange, surreal eruptions. He doesn't remember the moment when his wrists and ankles were tied together and a cloth shoved into his mouth. But it's happened and now, he is sitting on the edge of a crumbling stone balcony, fearing for his own life. He squints over the edge and his head becomes a little dizzy because it's a long way to the ground. There is no escape in sight and he thinks it was how the Greek soldiers sailing between Scylla and Charybdis must have felt._

_He tries to spit out the cloth; it's hurting his jaw and the simple feat of swallowing down is suddenly a problem. But he can't do it, not with his hands incapacitated. He closes his eyes and tries to calm down with controlled breathing, but even that is hard to achieve, what with the damn cloth obstructing his breathing a little. He's tempted to panic, but he's stronger than that. His father would disown him if he knew that his son, a Fischer, visited a psychiatrist every now and then, but at least Robert knows how to stay calm now, equipped with the knowledge of how to battle anxiety. But sitting on the edge of a crumbling balcony, threatened with falling to his death and being gagged – well, it's not easy to stay composed._

_In search of sanity, he conjures up the memory of a garden, and a lush oak tree, and a blanket stretched out underneath its magnificent green crown across the freshly mown grass. There is his mother, taking pictures, and then there is his father, actually chuckling, and little Robert blowing into the paper blades of his pinwheel with frowning concentration. The adult Robert opens his eyes as something grazes his shoulder and he looks down into the concrete abyss, his mouth agape as he sees a pinwheel, just like the one from his memory, floating down and there's…a tree has risen from the gray concrete. What_ is _this place?_

_He hears voices coming from outside the room from which the balcony is protruding and he becomes still, ceasing with the wriggling with which he tries to free himself of the bonds of the rope. One voice is familiar – the woman who is keeping him here. While he is straining his ears to hear better, a silhouette steps onto the balcony and it belongs to a young woman with a sweet face, warm brown eyes and swirling brown hair. She is the exact opposite of the one who has brought him here._

"_Are you okay?" she inquires and she genuinely wants to know. _

_She pulls the cloth out of his mouth and he takes a deep breath, then nods, confirming that he's okay. She goes about releasing him from the bonds eating at his wrists and ankles. He has so many questions to ask her. He knows that he can trust _her_, but he cannot explain why. It's like an innate feeling. He stands up, but just as he positions himself on his feet, the girl touching his arm to keep him balanced, the already shaking world begins to quiver wildly and it feels like the apocalypse. He doesn't panic often, and he tried not to panic before the girl came to save him, but now he feels like panicking, even though that's not what a Fischer does in a crisis situation. _

_Amidst the chaos, a man appears on the threshold of the balcony and Robert winces in recognition – he knows him. Isn't that Mr. Charles? And if that's Mr. Charles, he's…_dreaming_. Everything is just a _dream_? He can hardly believe it, but before he can express his confusion with words, the girl – the man, Mr. Charles, called her Ariadne – grabs Robert by an arm, shouting, "I'm improvising!" and pushes him off the balcony._

_She fucking _pushes_ him into the embrace of death. He remembers this is a dream, but it feels very real and the panic consumes him, laced with anger. He is falling because of the girl with a beautiful, ancient name. Well, damn h –_

* * *

Robert woke up panting, his heart performing a wild mazurka in his chest.

He woke up from dreaming about…dreaming. A dream within a dream. Had he been reading Poe lately? No, he hadn't since high school and even then it was an obligation. He was never one for morbidity.

What the hell did the dreams mean? He knew now that in his dreams, a girl by the name of Ariadne pushed him from that derelict balcony and pretty much killed him. And now, after dreaming about the two women for a week, he was recalling some strange snippets of snow, a fortress-like building, explosions, unknown hotel rooms and waking up in a van filled with water, although he was not dreaming anymore. Those things had never happened to him, but they were now lodged inside his memory like a factual truth. He pinched himself hard to make sure he was real.

He was confused and that was a gross understatement. He looked at the time and scrambled out of the big bed in his hotel room at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, although it was not even seven in the morning. He chose New York for the time being because it was his mother's home city and whenever he was not in Sydney or Los Angeles, he went to New York, although up until now, his trips to the metropolis had always had something to do with Fischer Morrow.

Two weeks ago, he was resigned to inheriting his father's company and spending the rest of his life doing something he hated. He didn't mind the luxury; it was all he had ever known and it suited him just fine. He minded the boredom of a life he didn't want, of a life chosen for him by his father. Yet he never said anything, he never opposed it. He was a Fischer and Fischers accepted their responsibilities, even if it pained them to do so. But not him, apparently, because a week ago, he had a strange, unbidden epiphany and he set in motion the process of disbanding Fischer Morrow. Just like that. And he did not even feel the slightest bit sorry or bad, or guilty because of it. He finally felt like his own man. And then, he went to New York, his starting point in the process of finding his true self.

The dreams were not helping.

He really needed to clear his head and think about it all in peace. He got dressed, something casual – a pair of washed-out Benetton jeans, a black Benetton hoodie over a white T-shirt and even a pair of black Chucks. He felt almost like a stranger in such abnormally casual attire, a weird doppelgänger of Robert Fischer. His body felt comfortable in Armani and Marc Jacobs and bespoke suits. He had never been _seen_ in public in such every-day clothes, but he liked the novelty. It was not like he was going to a business meeting; he just wanted to take a walk all the way to Central Park and do nothing in particular, apart from figuring out what was going on inside his head, and he wanted to do it inconspicuously, without bringing attention to himself in fancy clothes. Today, he wanted to be just like everyone else for a change.

Once in the main foyer of the hotel, he saw the waiting guests reading the _New York Times_ – and the front page was showing a picture of himself, with the title _Heir of Fischer Morrow Making a Drastic Decision – The End of the Reign of Fischers? _above it.

His decision followed him _everywhere_. Well, screw them. He put his sunglasses on, although the day appeared to be cloudy, and walked out of the hotel, welcomed by the hubbub of Park Avenue. He had never actually walked the streets of New York before. He had always been driven around in a limo or some other expensive car imported from Europe. He was fascinated by another new thing he was about to do. He knew he didn't want to give up the millions, but he wanted to use them for something that would bring him both relative comfort and happiness. He just had to remember what it was that Robert Fischer really liked.

He began to walk, wondering how long it actually took a person to get from the Waldorf-Astoria to Central Park on foot. He had some money on him, in case he needed to take a cab or if he got hungry and wanted to eat a normal hot-dog for breakfast, instead of exotic fruit on a silver plate that he was actually required to eat with a fork and cut with a knife. Walking down East 58th Street, he passed a library and the association it gave him came in the form of the name Ariadne, a girl from an old, Greek myth. The myth version of Ariadne saved Theseus; the girl in his dreams killed him. Robert had no idea how he had even come up with an Ariadne in his dreams. He was not into Greek mythology. He barely knew it, only the basics someone with an education was supposed to be aware of. All he knew was that in his dreams, he tended to conjure up women who killed him. _How about that_. Briefly, he wondered what Freud would have made of that and it made him smile.

Then, a thought hit him out of the blue. _Mr. Charles_. A slide of mental pictures rolled before his eyes.

"Shit," he muttered to himself and dug his hand into the pocket of his jeans to pull out his cell phone and call Uncle Peter.

The thought unraveled to completion. Mr. Charles, the man he remembered from somewhere, introduced himself to him as a projection in charge of protecting his mind, Robert remembered, which meant – _Shit_. Robert had no idea as to how he came up with that, but he did and he knew it was true. Those people were not figments of his imagination. Someone had been _inside his head_. He was sure of it, although he didn't know how to prove it, or how he even _remembered_ that.

Shit, an _extraction_ had happened, to _him_. His insides shuddered. What information did he give away? Just the very thought chilled him to the bone.

He searched for Peter Browning's name in the phone's menu of phone numbers and pressed the call button. Before the connection was even established, Robert cancelled the call and halted his steps, his hand holding the phone falling limp down the side of his body.

_Ariadne_.

She was walking towards him at a leisurely pace, talking into her cell phone animatedly, in what Robert understood was French. He closed his eyes and looked again. She was still there, approaching him.

He was dreaming. That was the only explanation.

He pinched himself to appease the feelings of uncertainty and his fingers stung the skin stretching over his wrist and still, he didn't wake up. Ariadne kept on walking towards him. Robert looked over his shoulder, half expecting the other woman, the fatal brunette, to be standing behind him, pointing a gun at him, while offering him one of those alluring, unearthly smiles. He expected to see Mr. Charles, but only Ariadne was there and Robert's mind was hovering – was he dreaming or not?

He decided to talk to her and if he heard what he wanted to hear, then he was dreaming. If not, he was still safely ensconced in the brutal reality and things would make no sense at all. At least that was his idea of dreams: in them, you had what you wanted; outside their sphere, everything seemed to be out of reach.

She was only a few steps away from him now and he waited on his spot, his arm ready to shoot out and make her pause. Yet, she actually did him a favor. Her eyes met with his unintentionally and instead of looking away immediately, as a complete stranger would have done, her orbs stayed on his, her mouth opening in surprise. The next moment, she tried to feign that the second of recognition never happened and she walked past him at a suddenly brisk pace, but Robert turned around, calling her name on an impulse.

"Ariadne!"

He was suddenly sure that he was not dreaming. This was real, _she_ was real and she had been inside his head. He wanted to know why. He absolutely demanded it.

She froze, her back going rigid. She turned around slowly, barely able to meet his eyes. She said something into the cell phone and closed it, shoving it into her purse. Her attire was casual, like his, only that she seemed to prefer browns and reds to the black he was wearing.

"I'm sorry, how did you call me?" she spoke with crumbling calm.

He knew he should have been angry, but he wasn't. He should have been screaming at her, calling the police, but he didn't do any of those things. He was just insanely confused. His enraged monologue should have been, "You, you were inside my head and you extracted something that was only mine from _my thoughts_! I am calling the cops for this." He should have grabbed her hands to disable any attempt at an escape. He should have been authoritative towards her and demanded justice.

But for two weeks, nothing had been the same anymore. He was a different Robert Fischer. He felt, absurdly, that she had a hand in this – and how could he be angry when he was happy about the way things were finally standing in his life, when he was free to do _anything_ his heart desired? No, he _should_ be angry. Extraction was theft and it was the worst kind of invasion into one's privacy. It was a humiliation done upon the simple intimacy that every man was entitled to possess only for himself.

But he wasn't angry. Now that the woman who killed him in his dreams was standing before him, his anger evaporated and Robert gave up. Apparently, nothing made sense, so why bother? It was not only that he found her attractive the way a man could see a woman; it was more. And he would find out why.

"You pushed me off the balcony," he stated matter-of-factly. It was not an accusation, merely a statement.

"W-what?" she stammered, then chuckled nervously. "Sir, I don't know you and I don't know what you're – "

"Everyone knows me," he interrupted and found it surprising how arrogant he could be at times.

He shook his head and took a step forward. "Let's just make things easy here. I won't call the police. I should, but I won't. I just need to know – what did you extract from my mind, and for whom? I know you're an extractor. I know how these things work."

He crossed his arms across his chest, as if shielding himself from her. This girl had been in his mind; she must have seen things, very _private_ things. He felt naked in front of her, all of a sudden.

She just stared at him in surprise and shock, unable to word her thoughts.

"Can I buy you a cup of coffee?" he offered, and he made sure she knew he was not taking no for an answer. "I hear Starbucks serves great coffee."

He shocked her and it was to his advantage. It worked.


	2. Finding

_A/N:_ Thank you so much for your amazing response to Part I! Thank you because you read it and left wonderful reviews!

For the entire time I was typing this story, I was listening to _A Forest_ by Bat for Lashes.

I included Annapolis, Maryland into this chapter because a friend just recently told me she's moving there. I'll miss her.

"Je suis très désolé, monsieur" means "I'm very sorry, sir."

It was the hardest thing in the world to think of a job for Robert. I hope what I opted for suits him. Also, Robert is now a more relaxed guy, that's why things turn out the way they do in this chapter.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Part II**

**Finding**

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They were sitting on a bench in Central Park, resting their vocal chords after a long time of talking, sipping on their Starbucks coffee.

"I _shouldn't_ be telling you all this," she kept repeating, "but I feel guilty because the inception worked and it's just… It's a burden that hit me only later on. And now, you remember what happened, against all odds, so I guess I pretty much have to tell you, huh?"

He promised her he wouldn't tell anyone. She believed him – she knew he was trustworthy. Apparently, the adjective had appeared in the file on him. How about that, he had a file done by _another_ dream team.

Inception, not extraction. _Inception_. That was what they did to him. It made him think of Aldous Huxley and _Brave New World_, but the way the people in the novel were feeding babies with ideas seemed nothing compared to what had been done to him. It was incredible and quite beyond his comprehension. He had no idea something like inception could be done to the human mind. It was supposed to be fiction, not a reality.

He was disappointed, although he could have chosen to feel a different emotion; rage, perhaps. That was a great option, a logical and sane option, considering his situation. But instead, he was disappointed. So, the change he had been feeling – it was not even _real_? That was simply… _terrible_.

Well, at least that femme fatale hadn't been real, so he didn't have to worry about her shooting him somewhere again. But the disappointment was real, very much so. His father and he never managed to reconcile. The love between them remained as broken as it had always been.

"Trust me, no one wanted to hurt you or anything… We did what we had to… to give a friend a chance to be with his family again. And at the end of the day… It's just what we do for a living. It's nothing personal. Most of the time, anyway."

Robert nodded. He understood. He actually _understood_. He had his views on the institution of family and he almost resented that guy, _Mr. Charles_, as he knew him (Ariadne did not disclose any names, of course), that he had a family to fight for and return to. Robert didn't have that sort of luxury.

And then, this disappointment. He voiced it to her, although he didn't mean to, but the bitter bile of disappointment was determined to pour itself out.

"I don't care about the company, I really don't. I never have," he confessed. "It's that the sense of freedom has been false. The sense that I'm finally my own man. There is still time for me to change my mind and _not_ disband Fischer Morrow. But…"

He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

"A part of me wants to please my dead father and the other part just wants me to… not please him, I suppose. I know that what he made me believe…what_ you_ made me believe in the dream wasn't real. He died thinking I was a…a disappointment."

"You know," she said, looking at the tips of her shoes, "I don't think _that_ feeling has been false. You know, the sense of freedom and the chance of you being your own man? I really do believe that the inception simply… woke it up. The way you've been feeling for the last two weeks now? It's always been there, but your way of life made you repress it."

He looked at her in wonder. She met his gaze, chuckling. "I'm not making it up," she assured him, lifting her arms as if in surrender. "Besides, shouldn't you know yourself best? I'm sure you know that what I'm saying is true."

He smirked. "In theory." He exhaled the air from his lungs loudly. "So, are you still, you know, on the team as an architect?"

She bit her lip uncertainly. She had told him so much, too much, and he could see the dilemma in her eyes. But he didn't tell her to forget his question. He was curious.

"Ye-es," she answered slowly. "I am. You know, you were my first… job and I really didn't understand it, and all that accompanied it, until after it was done. When I read the first newspaper article about the possibility of Fischer Morrow being disbanded, I almost called you myself." She wried a smile. "But I've gotten used to it. Now I… can't imagine_ not_ working in dreams anymore."

"Are you in New York on a job?"

She fought a blush. "No…Just visiting. I am from New York, I just study in Paris."

He regarded her with interest, shoving his hands inside the pockets of his hoodie. "What changed your mind, after… me?"

She removed her long, maroon tresses behind her ears, a smile quirking at the corners of her lips.

"It's addictive. The excitement, the adrenaline rush… I know extraction and inception are not strictly speaking legal, as my boss would say, but… Well, I love my job. My creativity has no limitations in dreams and, being an architect, I see myself as an artist. I love the boundless possibilities of creating my kind of art in dreams. You know, I can even defy the laws of physics, although it's not always advisable to do that in dreams. That world is fragile."

Then, she looked at him directly, surprising him with the honesty of her gaze. He had never seen such honest eyes in his entire life.

"Why are you not angry because of what we did to you?" she asked him directly. "Why are you just…_talking_ to me, being simply curious and _nice_? If I were you…" She chuckled. "Well, let's just say I wouldn't be acting so noble."

At that, he had to laugh out loud. _Noble_. No one had ever called him _that_. "I know, I've been asking myself the same questions, but… Two weeks ago, I would have sued your sorry asses," he spoke frankly and Ariadne raised her eyebrows. "But now I just don't…_feel_ like it."

"That's a rich one!" she exclaimed and laughed with him. "I guess I have to say, lucky us!"

Suddenly, she grew very serious. "Robert," she said, as they were on a first-name basis, "no one should know about this conversation. Officially, we never met. Do you understand? I'm asking you nicely, not threatening you, in case you misunderstood. Just…The team would have my guts for this," she added and shrugged her shoulders, smiling shyly.

"I thought it said in my file that I was trustworthy and that I kept my promises," he commented and arched an eyebrow at her.

She nodded, a flash of guilt passing her eyes, but she understood that his answer was an act of compliance.

"Well… You definitely are something, Robert Fischer. So, how will you decide?"

"Do you read newspapers?" he asked.

She nodded, confused.

"Well, then, Ariadne, you'll get your answer to this question there. They always know first."

"Fair enough," she responded and stood up. "I have to go now. Thanks for the coffee," she said and offered him her hand.

He stood up as well and shook it, prolonging the touch, keeping his eyes on hers. He was half tempted to kiss her, but he thought that it would have been too strange after all she had told him. Technically, he was the victim of an assault on his mind and even if no one else knew about this, he believed he owed it to himself to act like a proper victim for a while longer and not get involved with one of the people who visited his head when he wasn't looking, so to say.

Finally, he released her hand. "So, is there a chance I'll see you again?" he asked her.

She shrugged her shoulders. "We might meet on the streets of some lovely city like New York or Paris. You never know."

And then, she was gone.

* * *

Once upon a time, Robert Fischer rebelled.

He graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, much to his father's disapproval. Maurice Fischer thought that pubescence left the male brain later than the female's, so he indulged his son by allowing him to study at that college. Had Maurice Fischer known that his son chose that college not only to defy his father, but to be closer to the girl that interested him then, Fischer Sr. might not have been so indulgent.

After St. John's College, Maurice Fischer demanded that his son study Economics at Princeton University. Princeton was a must: it was a tradition of the Fischer men to go to Princeton. He flew into a fit of rage when he learned that his son applied for Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affair. A Fischer in public relations! It was unthinkable. So, Fischer Sr. declined the payment of tuition for his son, unless Fischer Jr. changed his mind and did as his father had ordained. In the end, Fischer Jr. used his mother's inheritance and did not speak to his father for four years. But then, the need for approval returned and from the day Robert returned back to Los Angeles, he always followed his father's rules, skipping between L.A. and Sydney whenever the old man wanted him to. He became a true Fischer, Uncle Peter assured him. But nothing he did seemed to please his father and while he was trying so hard to do things right and hear one single word of approval pass those old lips, Robert lost himself.

On the day he died in his dreams, he began to live and a year later, it felt incredibly and overwhelmingly wonderful to be sitting in a chair of his very own office in his very own firm in New York. He called it simply Fischer Communications and it was a public relations firm, exactly what his father would have hated. But Robert was no longer pestered by guilt and the feeling that he was just not good enough. He was doing what he loved doing and he was very good at it. The firm was successful and expanding, and he stayed rich, but this time the money was all his. His life was his own.

He still didn't know what was wrong with him, since he accepted the disbanding of his father's company so easily and without feeling the need to sue people. He could imagine his father screaming in his grave, demanding justice and calling his son an incompetent idiot. The latter had happened on many occasions. But, as Robert liked to say these days, he just didn't _care_. Maybe he was crazy, but he was happy, at least.

He had never forgotten his conversation with Ariadne. She captured his attention and he could hardly say why. Perhaps it was her honesty, the warmth inside her, or even the way she had sipped her coffee from her cup in a dainty, yet casual manner. She was the sort of person to whom things _mattered_. He often wondered where she was and what she was doing. He was sure she was having fun erecting her masterpieces in someone else's dreams. Could she be labeled as a criminal? He didn't mind. He felt, after all this time, that he would probably have used his fists had he met any other member of her team, after all; not because they could have hurt his finances, but because they bruised his pride. After a while, the anger he should have felt from the start did surface and he felt it, intensely, even while he was erecting his own masterpiece and feeling happy about it, as well as fulfilled. But never anger for Aridane. He was very partial to her.

He _liked_ her.

She had started to invade his mind so often, without being anywhere near him, that he felt he had to find her somehow and talk to her again. He didn't know what he wanted from her; perhaps nothing; he just wanted to see her again. He had been in love before, but this felt different. Definitely not an infatuation of any kind. He was not in love with her and yet all those previous occasions when he _was_ in love with someone felt superficial compared to what was drawing him to her. He didn't feel like himself at all. It was just not like Robert Fischer to give himself to someone entirely. He had learnt to stay wary of emotions and not give in to them too freely. He feared that he might have done that with her if she had stayed in his life.

But then again, perhaps he felt that way because she was nowhere near him and the idea of touching the forbidden fruit was always more exciting than the actual moment of holding it in your hands. Then, it simply lost its charm.

And yet, he allowed himself to take a week off and was, at the very moment, acting the part of a tourist in Paris, the city she had mentioned before they parted, climbing the stairs of the Rue Foyatier leading to the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur_. _He chose Montmartre because he didn't want to go all extravagant with five-star hotels just because he could and he figured that she might have liked that, which was insane and sickeningly corny of him, but he settled in Montmartre nevertheless. The chances that he would never see her, ever again, were high, but Paris in autumn seemed hopeful and he wanted to enjoy himself in the false promises he had created.

It was two in the morning and he was trying to feel less jet-lagged. He had travelled a lot in his life, but he was always jet-lagged after a long flight. In New York, it would have been nine in the evening and that was just too soon for him to go to bed. Besides, he had gotten used to walking around. One could see surprisingly many things when on foot.

He made his way up the stairs lazily, counting them to keep his mind occupied. Suddenly, he heard a barking sound behind him and turned around, pausing. He saw a Jack Russell terrier pawing its way up the stairs enthusiastically and a young woman running after it, the leash in her hands, crying "Jimbo!" after the dog. Robert smiled to himself and when the dog reached him and began to sniff around his legs, he bent down and scratched him behind the ears. He owned a Jack Russell terrier when he was a kid, but the dog died a year after his mother passed away, so he hadn't owned a dog since, feeling resentful that everyone he loved left him so easily.

"Jimbo!" the woman said with a scolding sound. "Oh, je suis très désolé, monsieur."

He straightened to look at her and assure her that it was fine, but felt embarrassed because his French was extremely bad and he couldn't remember how one said, "Oh, that's alright" in the language. But he didn't have to.

The coincidence was too great to be true, yet it was, entirely and absolutely true. The woman was, without a shade of doubt, real and she was Ariadne.

"Robert," she breathed, her jaw dropping ever so slightly, the excitement of recognition dancing in her brown orbs.

His heart was thumping in his chest vigorously and before he knew it, his lips were curling into a grin. She was there, standing right in front of him, at two in the morning, in Paris. They managed to meet again and Robert thanked his instincts for leading him to that city, after all. He found that he could become a believer in stars on this night, as their meeting must have been a consequence of some perfect alignment of stars.

"Ariadne," he replied calmly, although he felt quite the opposite. He felt unbelievably excited to be so close to her again. "You have a nice dog," he commented, knowing how lame his words sounded, his first words to her after a year, but he was too surprised, in the best possible way, to pronounce more meaningful thoughts.

For some reason, she blushed and pushed her loose hair behind her ears, a gesture of hers he had seen during their first encounter. She looked lovely when she did that.

"I'm dog-sitting, actually, but, uhm, yeah, Jimbo's a…a nice dog, I guess. Just… Unstable when off the leash."

She wried a smile. She put the dog back on the leash with trembling hands and looked up reluctantly, meeting his eyes shyly.

"What… what are you doing in Paris?" she asked him.

He shrugged his shoulders, then decided that perhaps, it was for the best to just be honest with her. "Actually… I have been kind of looking for you. Kind of… hoping I'd run into you."

Her eyes widened in surprise ever so slightly. "Me?"

She blushed again, this time the corners of her lips quivering with a suppressed smile. "That's uhm, unexpected." She cleared her throat. "So, congratulations on your new company," she continued, changing the subject. "I hear it's very successful. I read about it in a newspaper."

He chuckled. "Thanks. And you? Are you here on a job?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm having a few days off. I graduated six months ago," she added as an after-thought, biting her lip as if she'd said something that she shouldn't have.

"Congratulations," he replied and offered her his hand.

She eyed it warily, but slid her own palm against his and shook his hand. She wasn't looking him in the eyes; her gaze was focused on their entwined hands. He felt her shutting down, building a wall between them and he was nervously trying to think of words that would make her stay and not panic away from him. Instead, she kept her hand in his and asked him, without looking up, whether he would mind if she invited him for a cup of coffee.

"There's a sort of diner nearby," she rambled on, "that's open 24/7 and I thought, since you're here and we happened to meet…"

He had to laugh at her nervous expression. "I'd love that, actually." He felt strangely nervous too, as if that very moment was the most defining moment of his life, for some peculiar and inexplicable reason.

She started walking down the stairs, hiding her face behind the curtain of her hair, and he followed her promptly. Suddenly, he felt the need to stop her. She seemed so tense and he didn't like that very much. It was not exactly how he had imagined their second meeting, not that it mattered what he had imagined, anyway. He reached out and grabbed her by the elbow gently and she reacted immediately by growing stiff and halting her steps. She looked at him uncertainly.

"Do you really want us to have coffee together?" he asked directly.

She nodded, then looked up the stairs.

He sighed. "But you shouldn't and you're nervous about your team mates finding out."

She smiled a little. "Kind of. I don't know. It seems…unethical. You were a mark, remember?"

He nodded. "I thought we were over that." Then, he shrugged. "Well, I'm not mad at you, Ariadne. I'm mad at them, true, but not at you."

She looked at him in honest surprise. "So, you told me last year that you weren't angry at all, but you are now, which is totally natural and expected…yet not with me? _Why_?"

Was she really going to make him say it? No, she couldn't know, but she was still making him say it. If he confessed to her what he felt, it would have been the most honest thing he had ever said to a person and he felt vulnerable, a feeling he most certainly didn't enjoy. But her eyes had an effect on him. There was something about them, about her, and it was hard for him to resist it. She made him feel warm inside.

"I like you, Ariadne," he stated and was surprised at how easy it was to say what he truly meant. Once it was done, he felt lighter, but anxious at the same time because he just realized, for the first time, that he wanted her to like him back.

"You_ like_ me?" she echoed, pressing one hand against her cheek, the other one clutching at the leash. "This is…too weird," she continued.

Now he felt self-conscious and he stared at her in wonder. She had a point, though, but it did not feel nice inside.

"Well, what about it?" he countered, perhaps a bit resentfully. "So I want to get to know you. So you extract ideas from minds and incept them and God knows what else, but I still want to get to know you. And if the only thing you're afraid of is your team, then I don't see a problem. I don't want to see them, just you." He sighed. "Unless… You want me out of your life," he tried to say as calmly as he could, "in which case I'll walk away and not bother you anymore. But really, what's wrong with us… being sort of… friends?"

Her reaction startled him. She burst into laughter, covering her mouth with her hand. "I'm sorry," she said. "Let's just… let's just head for that diner, alright?"

He perked up his eyebrows. "So, this means…"

A delightfully crimson hue veiled her cheeks and he was tempted to touch them, but he refrained from it.

"Well, I shouldn't have coffee with you, but I want to. That's what it means. I guess my friends from the team will just…well, have to live with it. Although our friendship is an _unnatural_ one…and I'll have to go through hearing some heavy sermons." She chuckled when she said that.

They started walking again and she looked at him seriously. "If we want to do this…this _friendship_ thing…It won't be easy."

He nodded a silent agreement. She kept on talking. "I mean, first I'll have to convince my friends on the team that you won't give us away and that you have no ulterior motives in wanting to get to know me, because that is true, right?" He nodded again. "And then, I'll have to get over the fact that you know what I do for a living and I don't feel entirely comfortable about this because I am still not entirely sure that _you_ are. And – "

"How about," he interrupted her, pausing, and she jerked to a stop by his side, "we just go with the flow."

She shook her head. "You can't say that. We can't just go with the flow here, Robert. Officially, the team doesn't exist in your knowledge, but can you still be okay with the fact that I will remain its member?"

She seemed nervous and she blabbered. Yes, she was definitely nervous, Robert mused, and it made him smile.

"What?" she asked worriedly.

"It'll work," he responded. "It will." Repeating his assurance, he took her hand and started walking, making their fingers entwine.

She followed him in a daze, her hand a dead weight in his at first and then, her fingers became alive and settled against his palm comfortably.

"Do friends hold hands?" she asked after a while, the only sound having been that of Jimbo sniffing around.

He looked at her gently. "Not really."

He stopped again. At this rate, they were not going to make it to that diner by dawn. She blushed, but tried to look composed. He realized that she looked absolutely sweet like that.

"I just came to a conclusion," he stated.

"What conclusion?"

He was nervous, as if he'd never asked a girl out in his life. She made him feel vulnerable and as much as he hated his vulnerability, he liked that she was causing it this time; or at least, he was beginning to like it.

"That I might want to try something more than…friendship with you and that this diner you're taking me to could be the place of our first…date."

Her eyes widened. "You're shitting me…" she whispered.

He bit his lip. "No, I'm not. But I do feel a connection between us. Don't you?" he asked almost hopefully, but endeavored to stay calm, as if his heart wouldn't break if she said no.

She sighed. "What if it's a misplaced connection? What if it's guilt on my part and some sort of…I don't know…Stockholm Syndrome kind of thing on yours?"

At that, he had to laugh aloud and hard. "Now _you_'re shitting _me_!" he said, laughing all the while.

"I'm glad I'm so amusing," she replied, half smiling, half resentful.

"I'm sorry," he replied and forced himself to stop laughing.

He hadn't laughed so hard in years. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he laughed, sincerely, without pressure. She was a wonder, she truly was.

"Well, okay, then. There's a way we can solve this issue," he suggested with a neutral tone.

She arched her eyebrows in curiosity and he bowed his head to kiss her, pressing his lips gently against hers. She stiffened and he felt her need to move away, but as he was about to break their kiss reluctantly, although his lips felt just fine settled on top of the softness of her own, she returned the kiss, released the leash and embraced his neck with her arms. Jimbo jumped around, chasing after fallen leaves and barking at a stray cat at one point, but Robert and Ariadne remained oblivious to his activities until finally, they felt the need to breathe and look into each other's eyes.

Ariadne removed her hands from his shoulders where they had settled during the long, deep kiss and crossed them awkwardly across her chest, fighting yet another blush, but remaining composed. Robert waited for the world around him to fall back into focus. He was in a daze and it felt so extraordinarily good. When they kissed, he felt like a small part of her, and she was a small part of him. There was a connection between them and it was healthy and most welcome.

He cleared his throat and asked, "So?"

"So what?"

"So, did you feel guilty, like you don't want to be doing this, but you are just to make me feel better?"

She cleared her throat as well. "No," she admitted. "It was nice. Very nice."

He smiled. "Good. Same here. I don't feel like a part of me died because I kissed you, so I guess I see you in a healthy way. No syndromes."

She laughed this time. "I can't believe this, but yes, you have me convinced."

"So," he said, brushing her slightly tousled hair behind her ears for her, "we're going on a date?"

"Hm, sure, yes. Uhm, yes, we are." She nodded and smiled, then bit her lip. "And we can just…go with the flow, like you said. But it's still weird, you know," she said as their fingers entwined again.

She whistled and Jimbo rushed to her side.

"Do we care?" he asked her, their eyes meeting.

She shook her head and smiled. "No. Stranger things have happened anyway."

He chuckled. "And honestly, how many people can say they're with someone they met in their dreams?"

This night was their beginning.

**Finis**


End file.
